Glass Jar Okay?

leafybanana · Sep 11, 2020

So there's this famous TikToker, she's British and owns several mantids (orchids, ghost, spiny flower). Some people dislike her because she's inspiring young girls to purchase orchid mantises without any prior research, so much so that her breeder temporarily stopped selling mantises. Others dislike how she cares for her gecko (I don't know anything about that, but she does drop it a lot).

Anyways, I saw a post on Reddit saying she was abusing her orchid mantises by keeping them in glass jam jars/glass jars, I thought that she was doing alright in her keeping and was a bit confused (I do understand that she feeds her mantises wild caught insects like wasps and dances with several mantises on her face, which is dangerous). She has the right size jars, with non-metal mesh on the tops, humidity gauges, sticks, fake plants, and substrate. I wasn't aware that was a bad thing? Please let me know if it is, I thought most mantises could grip the glass with tiny suction cups, and that the other stuff was okay too!

I was planning on keeping a ghost nymph in a mason jar while it's small (with sticks and substrate of course!), and move it into a glass Wardian case-ish terrarium (with some modifications) when it grows larger. I've done other research and nothing indicates it's bad, but I've never yet kept a mantis (key word being "yet"!) I really liked her setup, and I would genuinely like to know what is wrong with it. Thanks!

Synapze · Sep 11, 2020

Glass jars are fine for most species as long as there is adequate ventilation in the lid and the humidity is monitored.

hibiscusmile · Sep 11, 2020

I don't like them, holds to much humidity and hard to hold on to.

nzxmUyZNKEBoqN3e · Sep 12, 2020

I know who you're on about. I have kept (and lost) 2 mantids in mason jars. Getting any form of ventilation in there is nigh impossible, especially with tight-necked jars. In a jar using something bar soil as a substrate (paper towel for example) and no real plants it may well be possible as the base humidity is likely to be a lot lower and there is less room for bad bacteria to grow. Ultimately, I wanted to create fully planted bioactive setups for my mantids and this was, at least for me, incompatible with using mason jars. If I recall correctly she uses analogue hygrometers which are (not from personal experience but have heard anecdotes) pretty whack. I can highly recommend getting a digital hygrometer preferably with a probe as these are, again in my experience, more accurate.

Also, I know you're planning on keeping ghosties but for the benefit of anyone reading this in the future, if you want to keep any mantids from the family Empusidae then you shouldn't use anything glass/acrylic/plastic unless it has a mesh attached to it, as they lack the extra bit on their feet that allows mantids to climb glass.